Friday, April 14, 2017

• The Assad family belongs to the tolerant Islam of Alawid orientation.

• Syrian women have the same rights as men to study, health and education.

• Syria women are not forced to wear the burqa. The Sharia (Islamic law) is unconstitutional.

• Syria is the only Arab country with a secular constitution and does not tolerate Islamic extremist movements.

• Roughly 10% of the Syrian population belongs to one of the many Christian denominations, all fully integrated in Syrian political and social life.

• In other Arab countries the Christian population is less than 1% due to sustained hostility.

• Syria has banned genetically modified (GMO) seeds, stating his decision was made in order “to preserve human health,”

• Syria has an opening to Western society and culture like no other Arab country.

• Its media and universities openly debate the global power elite’s influence in things. This means that they fully grasp the fact that real power in the West lies not in the White House but rather with the complex and powerful grid of elite think-tanks and central banks.

• Throughout history there have been five popes of Syrian origin. Religious tolerance is unique in the area.

• Prior to the current civil war, Syria was one of the only peaceful countries in the area, having avoided major wars or internal conflicts.

• Syria was the only country that admitted Iraqi refugees without any social, political or religious discrimination.

• Following a massive oil find in Syria's Golan Heights, occupied by Israel since 1967, Netanyahu recently asked Obama to recognize its annexation of the territory. To consolidate its hold, plans are afoot to quadruple Israeli settler numbers to 100,000.

And the most two important points:

• Syria is one of the only countries in the Middle East without debts to the International Monetary Fund ( Pre-invasion Libya & Iran the only others )

• Syria is the only Mediterranean country which remains the owner of its oil company, with an oil reserve of 2,500 million barrels, the operation of which has avoided privatization and is reserved exclusively for state-owned enterprises.

So now ask yourself, why are we truly attempting to overthrow yet another government? What are we hoping to fix here?

If the recent invasions and illegal assassinations of Presidents like Qaddafi and Saddam have taught us anything, it should be the understanding of the blowback effect of such lawless actions by the West and the vacuum of chaos that always supersedes it.
Debt Conquer. Invent a reason to invade and destroy, then offer $Trillions in IMF funding to rebuild... conveniently paid back by control of your oil fields and the free access to build gas pipelines to the west.

In 2013, Seymour Hersh wrote several articles raising serious questions about the nature of U.S. involvement in Syria. He cited several sources including the most authoritative study of the Ghouta chemical attack of Aug. 21, 2013, by MIT, which concluded that the Syrian government was not responsible for this attack.

A prominent Melkite Christian nun in Syria also put forward evidence raising serious questions about the attribution of this incident. Regarding the recent chemical incident in Syria, an obvious question is, given that Assad’s efforts at purging the jihadis from his country have been going well and that the U.S. had backed off of the “Assad must go” policy, why would Assad deliberately chemically murder some innocent civilians when he knows that this could only trigger Western unilateral action against him? The other obvious question is why are any conclusions being made or any actions being taken before we have some independently verifiable evidence of what actually happened?

I believe that regime change would greatly compound the genocidal crisis in Syria. Given the extent of the jihadist/terrorist presence on the ground in Syria and the absence of any secular, moderate force able to take power, I ask you if you can imagine a scenario where regime change (the destruction of the functioning government) will not have disastrous consequences for the people of Syria.

If we don’t take a meaningful stand against this and Assad is removed, we will not be able to put forward the traditional narrative that the problem was not regime change, but that we didn’t adequately plan for what happens after Assad. The genocidal outcome from the regime change policy will not be a miscalculation or a mistake. All the resulting death and suffering will be our fault.

DAVID DARTON
Rutland

Video: Watch the ex UK ambassador to Syria force the BBC to face the truth about Trump’s airstrikes

Former British Ambassader to Syria Peter Ford

Former DIA Colonel: 'US strikes on Syria based on a lie'

In the coming days the American people will learn that the Intelligence Community knew that nobody dropped military chemical weapons on innocent civilians in Idlib. Here is what happened.

Patrick Lang — a former DIA Colonel — does not mince words about the US attacks on Syria. Lang claims that Donald Trump’s decision to launch cruise missile strikes on a Syrian Air Force Base was based on a lie.

Patrick Lang is truly a top expert on the Middle-East. The former DIA Colonel is highly respected for his deep knowledge and absolute honesty.

ANALYSIS by retired Col. Patrick Lang

The Russians briefed the United States on the proposed target. This is a process that started more than two months ago. There is a dedicated phone line that is being used to coordinate and deconflict (i.e., prevent US and Russian air assets from shooting at each other) the upcoming operation.

The United States was fully briefed on the fact that there was a target in Idlib that the Russians believes was a weapons/explosives depot for Islamic rebels.

The Syrian Air Force hit the target with conventional weapons. All involved expected to see a massive secondary explosion. That did not happen. Instead, smoke, chemical smoke, began billowing from the site. It turns out that the Islamic rebels used that site to store chemicals, not sarin, that were deadly. The chemicals included organic phosphates and chlorine and they followed the wind and killed civilians.

There was a strong wind blowing that day and the cloud was driven to a nearby village and caused casualties.

We know it was not sarin. How? Very simple. The so-called “first responders” handled the victims without gloves. If this had been sarin they would have died. Sarin on the skin will kill you. How do I know? I went through “Live Agent” training at Fort McClellan in Alabama.

There are members of the U.S. military who were aware this strike would occur and it was recorded. There is a film record. At least the Defense Intelligence Agency knows that this was not a chemical weapon attack. In fact, Syrian military chemical weapons were destroyed with the help of Russia.

It should alarm American taxpayers that we launched $100 million dollars of missiles to blow up sand and camel dung. The Russians were aware that a strike was coming. They and the Syrians withdrew their forces and aircraft from the base. Whatever hope I had that Donald Trump would be a new kind of President, that hope is extinguished. He is a child and a moron. He committed an act of war without justification. But the fault is not his alone. Those who sit atop the NSC, the DOD, the CIA, the Department of State should have resigned in protest. They did not. They are complicit in a war crime.

About Patrick Lang

Walter Patrick “Pat” Lang, Jr. (born May 31, 1940) is a commentator on the Middle East, a retired US Army officer and private intelligence analyst, and an author. After leaving uniformed military service as a Colonel, he held high-level posts in military intelligence as a civilian. He led intelligence analysis of the Middle East and South Asia for the Defense Department and world-wide HUMINT activities in a high-level equivalent to the rank of a lieutenant general. [WIKIPEDIA]

There has been a rush to judgment over the origin of the chemical weapon attack in Idlib, Syria. Conclusions were drawn with no investigation, no gathering of evidence, no forensics, no independent international inquiry, only charges followed by military action. It is extraordinary that when anyone so much as asks for an investigation they are attacked politically. When a verdict is arrived at without facts how can we be sure?

Reese Ehrlich, in his 2014 work, "Inside Syria," writes: ". . . if UN inspector Sellstrom, as well as professors from MIT and Tesla Labs, are correct on the rocket trajectory, the rockets were fired from areas very near to or under rebel control."

Since the world may be moving close to a wider war precipitated by the gas attack at Idlib, it would behoove world leaders to investigate the source of the attack. That is, if facts even matter in the current environment.

Please read this account from a UN investigator who spoke to the BBC in 2013 concerning the gas attack at that time:

Here's the closer: We now have a "crisis." Rex Tillerson will go to Moscow to resolve it with Putin. The deal will be, Putin will prevent Assad from using more chemical WMD (easy enough, since he doesn't have any) in exchange for the US lifting the sanctions imposed on Russia.

With the sanctions lifted, Exxon gets its $87 billion contract in Russia! Everybody's happy, except the State Department employees who have to stare at the floor in Tillerson's presence.

The day after the attack, NPR reported a statement by a doctor at the scene who said the symptoms people were having were not of sarin poisoning, but could be from something like chlorine. When Assad supposedly got rid of his chemical weapons as agreed, it was noted that he had retained some chlorine stockpiles, ostensibly not as weapons. After the current incident, the Russians quickly claimed the poison was stockpiled by the rebels and exploded by conventional bombs from Assad's planes, then carried by wind into the rebel camp. Who knows.

R E C E N T . . . C O M M E N T S

Video:

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